Very often the people who are shooting your film do not look like you if your film is brown-centric in some way. What is very interesting is to be going through these scenarios and turning around and looking at so many faces that are not yours. Even though those faces are looking at you in love, it puts you in a space when you are on a plantation in that condition. I think that it allows you to see further into possibly what that place really was for someone else, except thank God we're with people who love and respect us.

I think what's happening in Hollywood is a direct reflection of what's happening in the world right now.

We actors can't say every line as if it has weight, but what we want to do is be true to the meaning of each line, whatever it is. Even the lines that are throwaway may come back later.

I've been in New York for 14 years. I would never leave for good. The city is so much more alive than so many other places, and I think it is fodder for performers. You see so much; research is thrown at you everywhere you go. There was a rat on the subway train recently - you saw the video online - that's fantastic! That's something that is so specific to this city, the way you are pushed up against humanity, and the animal kingdom, whether you want to be or not. It's a stimulating city - physically, intellectually, culturally. It never ceases to thrill me.

I have a lot of friends who are in mixed race relationships who are gay. But I think that the reason it bothers people is because there is not enough representation, even in the straight world, of people loving people who look like them.

Regardless of whether or not the producers think that there are five other people waiting for the job, the one that is there needs to be treated as if they are the only person for the job in that moment.

The seventies was a time when a lot of people didn't tell their children they were adopted.